Into the Metaverse (But Not Adidas’)

Venture Capital Deals

Swoops is an NFT-based fantasy basketball game where each basketball player is minted as an NFT that can be purchased, traded, staked, etc. The startup raised $3.5 million in a Series A led by Courtside Ventures and Alpaca VC. Other participants in the round included Slow Ventures, Red Beard Ventures, and a few individual investors like Jason Robins, the CEO of DraftKings. An important note, this game is not partnered with the NBA or any professional sports team. The NFTs are purely digital and face off in RNG (random number generator) games to algorithmically play out the results of the game. The funding will help cover the initial private NFT mint on Ethereum as well as a secondary public launch later this summer. (Gary Vaynerchuk-Backed Swoops Raises $3.5 Million for NFT Basketball Game)

Epic Games is a game producer most famous for its flagship game, Fortnite, as well as its game engine, Unreal Engine. The company raised $2 billion in a funding round that valued the company at $31.5 billion. This round saw participation from only Sony and KIRKBI, the parent company of The LEGO Group, splitting the investment evenly between them. The primary goal for the funding is to develop and launch an Epic Games metaverse to make more immersive and interactive versions of its games, participating Sony games, as well as a LEGO-themed metaverse world for kids. (Epic Games Raises $2B to ‘Build the Metaverse’—Will It Use Crypto or NFTs?)

Volt Protocol is a prototype for a decentralized, inflation-resistant stablecoin that tracks the US Consumer Price Index in order to make DeFi projects run off of a more stable reserve currency. The developers raised a $2 million seed round led by Framework Ventures and the Nascent team. Volt is expected to launch on the Ethereum mainnet in late April or early May, and will use Chainlink to pull the monthly CPI report and automate price targets for emissions through the remainder of the month until the next inflation adjustment is available. (Volt Protocol Raises $2 Million for ‘Inflation-Resistant Stablecoin’)

Genies is an NFT avatar platform where users can create virtual avatars, mint them as NFTs, and then integrate them into metaverses with customizable accessories and attributes. The company raised $150 million in a funding round that valued it a $1 billion. The round was led by Silver Lake with other participants being undisclosed. This fundraise follows major partnerships that Genies was able to develop with Warner Music Group and Universal to create avatars and collectibles for artists like Justin Bieber and Migos. (NFT avatar company Genies raises $150 million from Silver Lake)

Glow Labs is a white label software provider for creators and brands to create blockchain-based rewards programs for their biggest fans or most loyal customers. The company closed a $4.1 million seed round led by Harlem Capital with further participation coming from Forerunner Ventures, Female Founders Fund, and Red Beard Ventures, among others. After being frustrated with the technical and cost barriers with other frequent-customer rewards platforms, the founders decided to create a cheap, no-code platform that allows for customizable rewards systems such as gas-back subsidies on customers’ purchases. (Loyalty rewards startup Glow Labs raises $4.1 million in seed round)

CoinStats is an app for users to connect their crypto wallets and track and manage the performance of their crypto portfolios, currently being used to track over $500 billion in digital assets. The company raised $3.2 million in a funding round that saw participation from Hack VC and 6^th Man Ventures. The money raised will help CoinStats launch a new DeFi aggregator tool that they had been setting up the infrastructure for since 2021. CoinStats is trying to effectively aggregate a wide variety of DeFi protocols for users to manage their yield farming strategies through one portal, an attempt at gaining access to a portion of the $76 billion DeFi market. ($500 billion in crypto managed by CoinStats as it raises $3.2M to enter DeFi)

RociFi Labs is a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending protocol that builds a DeFi credit history to allow users the potential to borrow without the need to overcollateralize loans. The startup completed a $2.7 million seed round to get backing from Arrington Capital, Goldentree, Nexo, LD Capital, and Skynet Trading. Similar to how a credit bureau looks at a person’s financial history, the distributed ledger system of blockchains creates an opportunity for RociFi to track a user’s entire borrow/lend/investment history that can be used to generate a credit-worthiness score. This could be massive for leveraged investment strategies by removing the need to lock up a significant portion of your assets to limit the credit risk of anonymized lending. (RociFi Labs Raises $2.7M to Enable On-Chain Credit Scoring for DeFi)

BloXroute is a company that facilitates processing of DeFi transactions by providing a blockchain distributed network (BDN), an array of servers dedicated to speeding up how quickly transactions get sent to blockchains’ mempool to minimize the time it takes to settle high-priority transactions. The company raised a $70 million Series B led by SoftBank with participation from Lightspeed Ventures, Dragonfly Capital, and ParaFi Capaital, among others. At the moment, BloXroutte works on Ethereum, Polygon, and Binance Smart Chain (BSC), but the funding will be used to expand the development team to expand their reach to more chains. (DeFi Firm BloXroute Raises $70M to Fund Expansion in SoftBank-Led Round)

Oasis.app is a DeFi borrowing platform that for users to borrow Dai against their other crypto holdings, which can then be used to invest in other tokens or DeFi protocols, diversifying their portfolio without having to reduce their own personal holdings. The project raised $6 million in a Series A funding round led by Libertus Capital with further participation coming from Road Capital and a few individual investors. The funding round will help the Oasis team hire more developers to scale their platform and create new products to continue attracting more users. (Oasis raises $6M in funding after successful initial seed round of $5M)

Sooho.io is a Korean smart contract auditing platform that provides products to scan smart contracts for security vulnerabilities. The startup raised a $4.5 million Series A led by WeMade Tree with other participants not disclosed in the announcement. Sooho.io is already working with major Korean tech firms like Samsung SDS, SK Inc. C&C, and LG CNS, but the company has recently begun spreading its wings into other spaces in crypto, working on a leveraged yield farm aggregator to act as an easily accessible portal for Korean investors to use a variety of DeFi protocols through one single interface. (South Korean Smart Contract Auditing Platform Sooho.io Raises $4.5M)

Ethereum Push Notification Service (EPNS) is an Ethereum-based communication protocol that enables on-chain communication between wallets, as well as creating push notifications for on- and off-chain events like wallet transfers, media posts, etc. The company raised $10.1 million in a Series A that valued it at $131 million. Jump crypto led the funding round, with participation coming from Tiger Global, ParaFi Capital, Polygon Studios, and Sino Global Capital, among others. At the moment, EPNS has around 44 thousand users, with an aggressive strategy to reach one million users through marketing and launching on more chains like Polygon and Binance, among others. (Ethereum Push Notification Service Raises $10M at $131M Valuation)

Token Sales

NAFSTARS ($NSTARS) is a Polygon-based Play-to-Earn (P2E) platform for users to collect and trade NFT cards that compile a variety of real-time data (music streams, social media followers, career milestones, etc.) into performance/popularity scores. The startup closed a $1.7 million private token pre-sale as a seed round. The funding will help NAFSTARS launch their project, sign new partnerships with artists to attract both users as well as other artists, and to develop games that users can play with their NFTs. This project brings value to both the artists, who can earn income from selling NFTs or reach the leaderboards, as well as the fans who can earn income from in-game rewards. (NAFSTARS announces a successful fundraise of $1.7 million)

Crypto Capital Markets and M&A

Animoca Brands is a game producer and popular blockchain-based gaming venture capital firm that has been featured frequently in Funding Fridays. In a move to advance its gaming line of business, the company is acquiring Eden Games, a French game producer that specializes in producing racing games. The acquisition will cost Animoca $15.3 million for a 96% stake in Eden. Animoca plans to bring metaverse and NFT integration to Eden’s REVV Motorsport game ecosystem while taking advantage of Eden’s existing partnerships with BMW, Porsche, and others in the auto industry to improve the quality of their own racing ecosystem. (Animoca Drives into Crypto Racing Games With Latest Acquisition)

New Venture Capital Funds, Ecosystem Funds, and Alliances

Ignite, formerly Tendermint, is a crypto accelerator fund that focuses on investing in and developing multichain projects that will help advance blockchain interoperability. The company raised a $150 million accelerator fund that is backed by Alameda Research, KuCoin Ventures, OKX Blockdream Ventures, and Hashkey Capital, among many others. As part of this new fundraise, Tendermint is rebranding to Ignite and will spread their focus beyond projects in the Cosmos ecosystem, as they had traditionally done. Ignite is expecting to support around 20 projects per year with six-month development programs to help crypto startups reach critical mass. (Cosmos Builder Ignite, 11 VCs Put Up $150M to Invest in Multichain Crypto Teams)

White Star Capital is a venture capital group that launched its first crypto and blockchain venture fund with investments in Ledn, Paraswap, and Rally, among others. The company is starting its second crypto fund, Digital Assets Fund II, with $120 million primarily backed by Ubisoft. White Star is expecting to invest in 20-25 late-stage rounds in blockchain gaming, DeFi, and Web3 infrastructure projects. (White Star Capital Raises $120M Crypto Fund for Metaverse Investments)

Fabric Ventures is a British venture capital firm that has been investing in crypto and blockchain technologies since 2013, with Polkadot, MakerDAO, and Decentraland being some of its most successful investments. The company is launching two funds in parallel totaling $245 million – a $136 million early-stage fund and a $109 million late-stage fund. Both funds will make deployments primarily into Web3 projects, a very active space for venture capital and developers/engineers that has grown exponentially over the past year. (Fabric Ventures Completing 2 Web 3 Funds Totaling $245M)

Uniswap ($UNI) is the largest decentralized exchange (DEX) by volume that processes close to $2 billion in 24 hour trade volume, more than twice that of its closest competitor. Uniswap founder Hayden Adams is forming Uniswap Labs Ventures, a venture capital fund that will invest in any stage for Web3 projects around infrastructure, developer tooling, or consumer-facing apps. The fund will also take an active participation role in system governance for any token acquisitions, already having invested in Aave, MakerDAO, and LayerZero, among 8 others. (Uniswap launches venture capital wing for Web3 investments)

Pantera Capital, a behemoth in the crypto venture capital scene, has raised $1.3 billion for its Blockchain Fund that will be used to invest in Web3 startups, early-stage token sales, and well-established, highly liquid token sales. The firm is planning to deploy most, if not all, of the funds over the next year, hoping to create a second Blockchain Fund in 2023 as well as a growth-stage fund in 2024. The Pantera Blockchain Fund was launched back in June of 2021 with a goal of accumulating $600 million from investors, but has continued to grow the fund to more than twice that initial amount. (Pantera Says It’s Raised $1.3 Billion for Blockchain Fund, Plans to Raise More in 2023)

Deal of the Week

Circle Internet Financial is an internet finance firm that is mostly known for launching and issuing USD Coin ($USDC), the second largest stablecoin by marketcap. The company raised $400 million in a round that drew participation from BlackRock, Fidelity, Marshall Wace, and Fin Capital.

Why is this a big deal?

A part of the funding deal is bringing in BlackRock as a strategic partner for the purpose of exploring usability and adoption of USDC in global capital markets. BlackRock will also function as the primary asset manager of USDC cash reserves. This partnership is also coming soon after Circle announced that it is planning to go public through a SPAC, which valued the company at $9 billion. The new round of funding did not change the valuation. Other background events include partnering with BNY Mellon for custodial services with the assets backing USDC. All of these steps are being taken as Circle transforms itself in a new direction – “to become a full-reserve national commercial bank” in an effort to reduce business risk like limiting reliance on third-party payments systems. This could potentially set up Circle to become a major interface through which the financial sector can adopt USDC to handle payments, commerce, etc. as demand for cheap and fast digital currency continues to grow globally. (Circle Announces $400M Funding Round)